test-wiseness

Three variables which affect students' achievement test scores and which can be manipulated prior to test administration are discussed: testwiseness, practice tests, and test practice. Findings were presented from literature reviews. Regarding testwiseness, (1) it can be described, measured, and taught, therefore, testwiseness exists; (2) testwiseness is only mildly related to general intelligence as measured by group intelligence tests and is probably a network of specific skills, not a general cognitive ability; (3) testwiseness increases with maturity and is unrelated to sex; (4) although testwiseness skills can be taught to students of all ages, using a variety of techniques, the affects of such instruction do nt last long; (5) the differential effects of testwiseness instruction for students at various points along the testwiseness continuum is unknown and may vary with the type of testwiseness skill under consideration; and, (6) for some groups of students, testwiseness instruction improves the reliability and predictive power of certain tests. No research was found on practice tests' effects on student performance or on the reliability or predictive power of the associated test. Regarding test practice, it was found that taking one IQ test once for practice will improve IQ scores on a subsequent test given no more than two months later, and 'practice effects may last as long as ten months if the posttest is ',the same as or a parallel form to the pretest. (Author/GK)

This research examines the implementation and efficacy of Islamic Religious Test-Taking Strategies (RTTS) in mitigating test anxiety experienced by Saudi EFL students during reading comprehension assessments. A methodologically robust approach was employed, involving a sample of 100 undergraduate students at King Faisal University, with data collected through a meticulously structured questionnaire and supplemented by qualitative insights from in-depth interviews with fourteen participants. The results indicate a prevalent use of RTTS, including the recitation of Quranic verses and ritual prayers, as a mechanism for fostering psychological calmness and enhancing cognitive focus. Despite anecdotal reports of reduced anxiety-manifested through physiological responses such as lower heart rates-statistical analysis revealed no significant correlation between RTTS and overall test anxiety reduction. Nonetheless, the profound spiritual and emotional impact of these strategies highlights their intrinsic value, underscoring deeply ingrained religious convictions and cultural traditions. The findings posit that RTTS primarily function as a source of spiritual reinforcement and psychological comfort rather than a definitive means of reducing measurable test anxiety. The reliance on faith-based practices, such as the recitation of Ayat Al-Kursi, underscores the intersection of spirituality, academic resilience, and cultural identity, offering insights that extend beyond conventional empirical paradigms.

In 2008, the implementation of the National Assessment Program -Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) commenced in all schools across Australia. This assessment of mathematical and literacy standards across Australia raised questions about the impact which high-stakes testing has on teaching and learning. This research specifically focused on the effect NAPLAN has had on the teaching and learning of mathematics. The study explored perspectives about NAPLAN from key participants; students, teachers and parents at one Western Australian Primary School. These perspectives included the potential anxiety experienced by students and how this affected their performance in NAPLAN. According to recent research on high-stakes testing, the role of the teacher is instrumental in children's achievement results. As such, this study also investigated the extent to which instructional pedagogy at one school had been altered by the implementation of NAPLAN and the subsequent publication of results. Moreover, this study investigated the effect NAPLAN had on parents' understanding of the national testing program and how NAPLAN had affected their relationship with the school. Consistent with a phenomenological perspective, the qualitative data for this investigation were collected through semi-structured interviews and field notes. Moreover, collected data offer insight into how the implementation of NAPLAN has affected stakeholders' attitudes towards the teaching and learning of mathematics.

This conference paper was originally published as: Cranley, L., & Hine, G. (2016). Are there any winners in high-stakes mathematics testing? A qualitative case study exploring student, parent and teacher attitudes towards NAPLAN numeracy tests in years 3 and 5. MAV (Mathematical Association of Victoria Annual Conference) 2016. https://www.mav.vic.edu.au/files/2016/2016_MAV_conference_proceedings.pdf

Technology is crucial for teaching and learning in the 21st century. However, many pre-service teachers (PSTs) feel unprepared to utilize digital literacy (DL) in their future classes. This study explored PST’s perceptions of their DL knowledge and the perceived impact of their teacher education programs through a qualitative bounded case study method. Participants for this study were three PSTs engaged in a technology integration course at a land grant university in the northwestern US. Participants engaged in recorded one-on-one semi-structured interviews to learn about their perceptions and readiness for DL. The findings indicate that while PSTs were aware of DL, they lacked confidence in their ability to teach it. The study identified four critical themes related to the PSTs' perspectives on DL: concerns, challenges, advantages, and future decisions. The prioritization of DL training in teacher education programs and the reconsideration of engaging technology-related courses by universities and policymakers are recommended.

Black middle school students in the United States continue to perform poorly on standardized reading achievement tests in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups. The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of a vocabulary-focused test preparation program for Black middle school students. The theoretical framework consisted of Thorndike’s concept of test-wiseness, a test-taking capacity. Teachers at the research site were trained on Larry Bell’s 12 Powerful Words strategy that aims to make students test-wise, that is, to familiarize them with key vocabulary terms related to tests. An intact-group comparison was conducted, involving a total of N = 679 Black students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 with 370 girls and 309 boys. An analysis of covariance showed significant effects for Grade 6, marginally significant effects for Grade 7, and nonsignificant effects for Grade 8. These findings suggest that the 12 Powerful Words are effective and that their effect decreas...

This case study describes how one autistic learner, an 11-year-old boy, became a co-researcher with university literacy instructors to investigate how hypermedia can help him develop language and literacy skills. Data was collected for one year from video taping, journal notes, interviews with teachers and parents, test scores, and student artifacts of reading and writing samples. Researchers learned that fast-paced behavioral games were a detriment to learning language processes, whereas talking books on CD-ROM, schematic mapping software, and simulations helped the learner to increase reading and writing competencies. The learner's scores doubled every six months in reading and writing. (Contains 17 references.) (Author/AEF) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. *

This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the INAP-L instrument by applying the Rasch model. The psychometric evaluation includes item calibration and differential item functioning (DIF) assessment. Participants in this study were 6153 high school students (2326 boys and 3827 girls) aged 14-19 years (mean age = 15.76, SD = 0.78) from 280 schools spread across 34 provinces in Indonesia. The results of the Rasch model analysis show that the assumptions of unidimensionality and local independence are met. The internal consistency analysis of the INAP-L instrument (PSR = 0.80; Ordinal α = 0.81) and item-person targeting showed quite good results. At the item level, it was discovered that four of the forty items did not fit the Rasch model. Meanwhile, the gender-based DIF analysis revealed that all items were free from gender DIF and that two out of forty items showed DIF based on school type. It can be concluded that the INAP-L instrument has good psychometric properties. Furthermore, multilevel analysis was performed to determine the effect of clustering in the data, and it was discovered that INAP-L has a multilevel data structure with ICC = 0.185 and a design effect > 2.00. This means that future research on the relationship among variables on the INAP-L score must consider a multilevel approach. Even though the developer has already published an interim report on INAP-L, the findings of this study can be used as a reference in improving the instrument before conducting INAP-L in the future.

This paper aims to draw reliable conclusions regarding yes-no questions and wh-questions in English and Albanian spoken discourse. The study outlines the differences and similarities in these question types between the two languages.The corpus of the study includes seven Meet the Press (NBC News) interviews (totaling 2 hours and 51 minutes) with the former President of the USA, Donald Trump which contribute to the English spoken corpus. Additionally, there are two Rubikon (KTV) interviews (totaling 2 hours and 51 minutes) with Hashim Thaçi, the former President of the Republic of Kosovo that are part of the Albanian spoken corpus. A qualitative method is employed to compare, analyze, and draw conclusions based on the findings of the conducted research. The study finds that the English yes-no questions feature the inversion of auxiliary and modal verbs to the subject position. However, the Albanian yes-no questions are characterized by the interrogative particle ‘a’, which may be pos...

Research methodology courses have become an important requirement for students in many undergraduate programs in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this case study is to explore students’ perceptions of using collaborative learning (CL) in a research methodology course. This course is an undergraduate-level course that is taught in the Department of English Language and Translation at Saudi Electronic University (SEU) in a blended learning environment. Also, this study aims at understanding the effects of introducing group projects into the curriculum on students’ learning experiences from their points of view. In addition, this research sheds light on how students perceived the distribution of workload within groups. The current study employed qualitative methods to collect data by distributing a qualitative questionnaire with open-ended questions. The data were collected from 137 students enrolled in three different branches of SEU in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. The data were analyzed by...

This research was intended to analyze the effect of Reading Aloud and Vocabulary Enrichment on students’ English-Speaking Skills. A survey method was applied to get accurate information about the research respondents. The population was the students of STIEM Bongaya who were still active in the 2021-2022 academic year. Among them were 100 students taken to be the sample using Non-Probability Sampling with incidental sampling technique. The data collection used questionnaires, and the data analysis used multiple regression analysis techniques with the software program SPSS version 21. The research results indicated that Reading Aloud and Vocabulary Enrichment significantly affected students' Speaking Skills in English. Reading Aloud and Vocabulary Enrichment contribute 18.80% to students' Speaking Skill improvement. Therefore, it is recommended that the students read English reading material by voice to practice the tongue to pronounce English words supported by good mastery ...

Two mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) discuss the mathematical contexts generated by prospective teachers (PTs) when pushed to look for relevant mathematics in their lives and communities. Through collaborative teacher action research focused on iterations of collecting, categorizing, and discussing PTs' mathematical contexts, and posing selected examples for PTs' own examination, layers of learning occurred for both PTs and MTEs. PTs began to craft more personalized, story-like contexts, seemingly noticing more mathematics in their lives. MTEs were unexpectedly pushed to clarify their thinking about what it means to develop contexts that are authentic and relevant, and to contemplate how their actions were influencing the mathematical stories told by PTs.

Background: Test score pollution explains how multifaceted factors affect the truthfulness of a test score interpretation. The pressure to raise test scores has resulted in practices which pollute the inferences we make from these scores. Issues of accurate testing remains relevant in the space of any testing environment in Ghana and beyond. This study explored the different sources of test score pollution considered test preparation practices (teacher factor), test administration situations (testing environment), and external factors (parents and community pressure). Methods: The study was nested into the quantitative approach using descriptive survey. Basic school teachers (n=353) and parents (n=123) were selected from three districts (South, North and Central Tongu) in the Volta region using G*Power software. A validated and standardized instrument (with alpha coefficient of .783 and correlation coefficient of .823) was used to obtain the data. The obtained data was analyzed using SPSS v.25 and interpreted with linear multiple regression after the data had met all the required assumptions. Findings: The results revealed that all the predictive factors that is test preparation practices (t=4.73, Sig.=.007, CI95%), test administration situations (t=4.20, Sig.=.006, CI95%) and parents and community pressure (t=2.69, Sig.=.000, CI95%) predicted test score pollution in the selected districts. However, among all the predictor variables, test administration situations (testing environment or conditions) were identified as having much influence on test score pollutions in the districts (R 2 =.652, 65.2%, Sig.=.000, ꞵ=.616, CI95%). Conclusion: The study concluded that due to test score pollution, most test practices in Ghana are not at its optimal best. Clearly, the demand and the pressure to raise test scores results pollute and contaminate the interpretations, inferences and decisions that are made from these test scores.

This research investigates the topic of dynamic assessment (DA) in an Indonesian setting and to a specific degree of competence to extract key facts. In the first phase of the investigation, quantitative data were collected, and analytic approaches were used. In the second phase, a qualitative approach was employed to explore learners' and teachers' impressions of DA on students' writing abilities. The participants were 100 students recruited from the State University of Malang, Indonesia. The paired and independent sample t-test results demonstrated that the DA enhances learners' writing skills on multiple levels, including content, vocabulary, language, organisation, and mechanics. It is strongly recommended that EFL writing teachers in all learning contexts use DA in academic EFL writing programs. Further research can look at some DA concerns and develop acceptable solutions.

The present study aims to explore how the use of translated Saudi folk narratives could help improve Saudi EFL learners' reading and speaking skills. (41) EFL elementary-level students from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University were selected for this study to identify and assess the influences of the translated Saudi folk stories in enhancing the reading and speaking skills of Saudi EFL learners. An experiential teaching method using selected translated Saudi stories into English was adopted. The preliminary findings in the pre-intervention stage have shown that the students were neither motivated to read the content nor speak in English as the students encountered some kind of difficulties in comprehending the translated stories. The post-intervention results demonstrated that the students were motivated to read the Arabic stories in English. It also showed that the students were engaged to speak about Saudi / Arabic oral stories and culture. The effect of using Saudi-translated stories was observed in improving the reading and speaking skills of EFL Saudi learners. Thus, the study concludes that it is essential to use the translated Arabic folk stories as supplementary teaching material in the EFL reading and speaking classes. It also suggests that we need to translate Saudi folk stories into English for the benefit of Arabic and non-Arabic readers and speakers.

This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the INAP-L instrument by applying the Rasch model. The psychometric evaluation includes item calibration and differential item functioning (DIF) assessment. Participants in this study were 6153 high school students (2326 boys and 3827 girls) aged 14-19 years (mean age = 15.76, SD = 0.78) from 280 schools spread across 34 provinces in Indonesia. The results of the Rasch model analysis show that the assumptions of unidimensionality and local independence are met. The internal consistency analysis of the INAP-L instrument (PSR = 0.80; Ordinal α = 0.81) and item-person targeting showed quite good results. At the item level, it was discovered that four of the forty items did not fit the Rasch model. Meanwhile, the gender-based DIF analysis revealed that all items were free from gender DIF and that two out of forty items showed DIF based on school type. It can be concluded that the INAP-L instrument has good psychometric properti...

This research investigates the topic of dynamic assessment (DA) in an Indonesian setting and to a specific degree of competence to extract key facts. In the first phase of the investigation, quantitative data were collected, and analytic approaches were used. In the second phase, a qualitative approach was employed to explore learners' and teachers' impressions of DA on students' writing abilities. The participants were 100 students recruited from the State University of Malang, Indonesia. The paired and independent sample t-test results demonstrated that the DA enhances learners' writing skills on multiple levels, including content, vocabulary, language, organisation, and mechanics. It is strongly recommended that EFL writing teachers in all learning contexts use DA in academic EFL writing programs. Further research can look at some DA concerns and develop acceptable solutions.

The Therapy Box is a behavioral intervention being researched to determine its effectiveness as a Response to Intervention (RtI) Tier 2 and Tier 3 behavioral intervention for identified students. The Therapy Box assists students with developing self-regulatory skills and increasing their social-emotional literacy while providing a supportive, caring, and safe classroom environment. The Therapy Box is a treatment package that encompasses the theories of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the use of functional behavior assessments, B.F. Skinner's theory of manding, Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DRA), and Directive Play Therapy. The hypothesis is that the student will be able to mand for "calm down time" with the box in lieu of an anger outburst/ episode within the classroom. The Therapy Box must be explained, and the student is part of the box creation during directive play therapy sessions. The intervention includes both student and teacher support to ensure skill generalization and successful outcomes. This research indicates that The Therapy Box proves to be an effective behavioral intervention for at-risk students.

It is highly recommended that educators know the importance of test-wiseness and test-unwiseness strategies which impact learners' performance on tests. This study aims to identify the common strategies learners adopt to achieve a high score and the most significant challenges that the learners face when taking the tests concerning the design of the tests and the clarity of instructions and questions. A group of six high school students has participated in the study. They have been given a vocabulary test with two types of questions (open and closed questions). The data has been collected by direct observation and a think-aloud protocol. The participants has utilized various test-taking strategies, which have helped them arrange ideas and gather information, such as asking about instructions, excluding choices, reading all questions before answering, and making a random choice of answers. Other students have utilized some TTS unwisely, such as skipping reading questions and inst...

It is highly recommended that educators know the importance of test-wiseness and test-unwiseness strategies which impact learners' performance on tests. This study aims to identify the common strategies learners adopt to achieve a high score and the most significant challenges that the learners face when taking the tests concerning the design of the tests and the clarity of instructions and questions. A group of six high school students has participated in the study. They have been given a vocabulary test with two types of questions (open and closed questions). The data has been collected by direct observation and a think-aloud protocol. The participants has utilized various test-taking strategies, which have helped them arrange ideas and gather information, such as asking about instructions, excluding choices, reading all questions before answering, and making a random choice of answers. Other students have utilized some TTS unwisely, such as skipping reading questions and inst...

It is highly recommended that educators know the importance of test-wiseness and test-unwiseness strategies which impact learners' performance on tests. This study aims to identify the common strategies learners adopt to achieve a high score and the most significant challenges that the learners face when taking the tests concerning the design of the tests and the clarity of instructions and questions. A group of six high school students has participated in the study. They have been given a vocabulary test with two types of questions (open and closed questions). The data has been collected by direct observation and a think-aloud protocol. The participants has utilized various test-taking strategies, which have helped them arrange ideas and gather information, such as asking about instructions, excluding choices, reading all questions before answering, and making a random choice of answers. Other students have utilized some TTS unwisely, such as skipping reading questions and instructions or reading them partially and choosing random answers without processing the whole question for meaning. The study helps to understand test-wise and test-unwiseness strategies and differentiate between conscious and unconscious strategies used by the participants. It has also suggested that educators should understand the impact of these strategies on their tests as this would help reduce the incidence of poorly framed questions and ambiguous instructions for learners. The study also raised the question of whether TTS should be taught to students or not. A topic that could further this investigation to reach wider insights and implications.

Background: Test score pollution explains how multifaceted factors affect the truthfulness of a test score interpretation. The pressure to raise test scores has resulted in practices which pollute the inferences we make from these scores. Issues of accurate testing remains relevant in the space of any testing environment in Ghana and beyond. This study explored the different sources of test score pollution considered test preparation practices (teacher factor), test administration situations (testing environment), and external factors (parents and community pressure). Methods: The study was nested into the quantitative approach using descriptive survey. Basic school teachers (n=353) and parents (n=123) were selected from three districts (South, North and Central Tongu) in the Volta region using G*Power software. A validated and standardized instrument (with alpha coefficient of .783 and correlation coefficient of .823) was used to obtain the data. The obtained data was analyzed using SPSS v.25 and interpreted with linear multiple regression after the data had met all the required assumptions. Findings: The results revealed that all the predictive factors that is test preparation practices (t=4.73, Sig.=.007, CI95%), test administration situations (t=4.20, Sig.=.006, CI95%) and parents and community pressure (t=2.69, Sig.=.000, CI95%) predicted test score pollution in the selected districts. However, among all the predictor variables, test administration situations (testing environment or conditions) were identified as having much influence on test score pollutions in the districts (R 2 =.652, 65.2%, Sig.=.000, ꞵ=.616, CI95%). Conclusion: The study concluded that due to test score pollution, most test practices in Ghana are not at its optimal best. Clearly, the demand and the pressure to raise test scores results pollute and contaminate the interpretations, inferences and decisions that are made from these test scores.

Background: Test score pollution explains how multifaceted factors affect the truthfulness of a test score interpretation. The pressure to raise test scores has resulted in practices which pollute the inferences we make from these scores. Issues of accurate testing remains relevant in the space of any testing environment in Ghana and beyond. This study explored the different sources of test score pollution considered test preparation practices (teacher factor), test administration situations (testing environment), and external factors (parents and community pressure). Methods: The study was nested into the quantitative approach using descriptive survey. Basic school teachers (n=353) and parents (n=123) were selected from three districts (South, North and Central Tongu) in the Volta region using G*Power software. A validated and standardized instrument (with alpha coefficient of .783 and correlation coefficient of .823) was used to obtain the data. The obtained data was analyzed using SPSS v.25 and interpreted with linear multiple regression after the data had met all the required assumptions. Findings: The results revealed that all the predictive factors that is test preparation practices (t=4.73, Sig.=.007, CI95%), test administration situations (t=4.20, Sig.=.006, CI95%) and parents and community pressure (t=2.69, Sig.=.000, CI95%) predicted test score pollution in the selected districts. However, among all the predictor variables, test administration situations (testing environment or conditions) were identified as having much influence on test score pollutions in the districts (R 2 =.652, 65.2%, Sig.=.000, ꞵ=.616, CI95%). Conclusion: The study concluded that due to test score pollution, most test practices in Ghana are not at its optimal best. Clearly, the demand and the pressure to raise test scores results pollute and contaminate the interpretations, inferences and decisions that are made from these test scores.

This paper explores a study completed with 1 st grade students while a five-week mindfulness unit was implemented in their classroom. The paper discusses tactics for teaching mindfulness strategies to students and results observed in the students over the course of the five-week study. It also contains journal entries completed by students and their families both in the classroom and at home.

This paper brings together educational proposals based on a framework derived from the perspectives of historic-cultural and genetic-cultural theory. This framework enables us to specify the goals, realities and alternatives for renewal in the educational task, and to highlight a series of recommended reorientations for tackling education in a changing world. These reorientations imply a switching of attention: from the current emphasis on knowledge as an end in itself, towards a greater attention to the tools and operators of knowledge; from an emphasis on individual tasks to a greater concern with shared activities as the origin of mental operations; and from an emphasis on meaning and knowledge as ends to an emphasis on meaning and knowing as means. In general the need to adopt a more evolutionary, dynamic and integral vision of the educational process is highlighted here, one in which the development of the person and the functional personality takes priority over the accumulation of repertories of different forms of knowledge. In the same spirit, we advocate the adoption of a vision of the whole developmental process in culture as a global curriculum, in which school should take the role of articulating structuration and meaning.

Two mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) discuss the mathematical contexts generated by prospective teachers (PTs) when pushed to look for relevant mathematics in their lives and communities. Through collaborative teacher action research focused on iterations of collecting, categorizing, and discussing PTs' mathematical contexts, and posing selected examples for PTs' own examination, layers of learning occurred for both PTs and MTEs. PTs began to craft more personalized, story-like contexts, seemingly noticing more mathematics in their lives. MTEs were unexpectedly pushed to clarify their thinking about what it means to develop contexts that are authentic and relevant, and to contemplate how their actions were influencing the mathematical stories told by PTs.

This paper focused on the notion of test score pollution and elaborated on different sources of test score pollution. These sources were test preparation, situational factors, contextual factors, disproportional importance attached to tests by policy makers, editorialists and other commentators based on misconceptions about the role of tests or misinterpretations and over-interpretation of the meaning of test scores. Then, it provided some suggestions to reduce the problem with interpretation and unwise use of test results. The recommendations offered in this paper expressed the concern to employ a democratic approach to testing and use of

Teacher efficacy measures a teacher's perception of his or her capacity as a teacher and impacts teacher behavior in a number of different ways. This study examined teacher efficacy as well as pedagogical beliefs/practices in pre-service and novice in-service teachers to determine the nature of the relationship between the two. Results indicated that the novice in-service teachers demonstrated statistically significant higher scores on the efficacy measure. In regards to the relationship between pedagogy and efficacy, there was no statistically significant relation among the pre-service teachers but with the novice in-service teachers, efficacy was statistically significantly correlated with general instructional pedagogy.

Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Elementary Education and Teaching Commons, Higher Education and Teaching Commons, Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching Commons, Other Education Commons, Other Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons, Pre-Elementary, Early Childhood, Kindergarten Teacher Education Commons, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons

Merely, introducing new technologies into the classroom does little to address the needs of students-while it might create a welcome instructional environment for them, it does not address the compelling "elephant in the room. " Being able to orchestrate a student-centered, technology-rich lesson requires much expertise on the part of the teacher and a system-wide universally acknowledged educational technology plan. This study examines the paradigm shift required of teachers and the practical reality of adopting a blended learning environment to meet the needs of a diverse school district.

Our topic became: pacing the curriculum in the context of school realities. Our 'study' stemmed from our long conversations about teaching and our observations about the changes we had each made over the years to adjust to the ebb and flow of the school year. (We believe that this is "action research" because it has been all about "making changes and observing their effects"-but it may be one of the longest running action-research studies in that it has taken us over thirty years to articulate our conclusions.) From those conversations we developed a prototype of factors, conditions, variables, that we personally found tend to influence pacing the curriculum in the day, week, month, term, year. We found that the changes we had both made with regard to pacing the curriculum were almost identical. For a "reality check" on our findings, we then surveyed twenty-four other secondary teachers, teachers with reputations for being strong teachers to see if there was agreement about the importance of the factors we had identified and to see what else they might add to this ongoing conversation. Based on our reflection about our own experiences, and our survey of twenty-four of our peers, we found general support for the idea that the factors we identified have strong external influences on the pacing and the rhythm of the curriculum. While we think there is value for teachers in considering the factors that we identified, we felt that the greater richness of our study came in the written comments by the teachers we surveyed. On the basis of their remarks we found evidence that effective teachers have adapted to these factors to mitigate against their becoming negative factors, and that at least certain teachers have a rich repository of knowledge about the art of pacing the curriculum. The Problem "Some teachers never figure it out...for example, they continue to give tests in Friday afternoon classes during football season, then are frustrated on Monday when fourteen football players and cheerleaders have to make up the test." Larry Giacomino, High School Science Teacher Larry and I were having an informal discussion about the inevitable rhythms of the school year. We had both started our teaching careers in the late 1960s at Overfelt High School in east San

Two early career literacy and language teacher educators who have digital literacies at the core of their professional and scholarly pursuits share their quest to enhance their online instruction. The authors wanted to identify one new improvement for their online courses in an effort to engage the students and support a more connected learning community. The improvement was instructor-made videos. Once the first video was shared and posted, weekly peer support, the premises of "keeping it simple" and "it does not need to be perfect" seemed to be critical in the implementation of videos for the online instruction. The authors continue to use instructorcreated videos in their courses as part of their routine online teaching.

Field experience seminars, discussion-based courses paired with school-based practicum experiences, provide a space for teacher candidates to discuss the theories they study in their university classes and the practices they observe and implement in their school placements. This article describes an action research study that examines teaching techniques that promote discussion in English education seminar courses. The purpose of this research was to collaboratively develop teaching approaches that would help teacher candidates bridge ideas about theory and practice in their development as aspiring teachers. The conversations that challenged the teacher candidates to think critically and theoretically about their classrooms were transformative moments in our seminar classes.

One goal of early childhood teacher educators is to teach in ways that model teaching young children. What better way to study curriculum than to design it? This article describes a graduate early childhood curriculum course in which the students participate in the process of designing the syllabus. They receive a syllabus empty of topics, schedule, and readings. Together, we design the course according to their interests and needs. By semester's end there is a full reading list and schedule. The invitation to co-design curriculum provides opportunities for investigation, representation and reflection as does constructivist teaching for children, and demonstrates concretely that curricular goals can be addressed in multiple and varied ways.

Introduction: After hearing much about the Finnish education system, we recently jumped at the opportunity to visit the country to explore schools and education organizations as members of a professional organization tour. In this article, we aim to reflect upon what we learned, provide multiple perspectives of the Finnish education system, and discuss possible implications for Kansas educators.

Building on the rich tradition of 'teacher as researcher' in mathematics education, I describe a study undertaken whilst working as a mathematics specialist in an Australian primary school. The focus of the study was on examining whether explicitly teaching students test-taking strategies ('test-wiseness') improved their performance on a standardised numeracy assessment; specifically, a practice version of the Year 3 National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). The study was unusual for teacher-research in that it adopted an experimental design. Thirty-eight Year 2 students (7 and 8 year olds) were randomly allocated to either an intervention condition (n=19) focused on developing test wiseness, or a 'business as usual' control condition (n=19). It was found that exposure to test-taking strategies improved student numeracy performance, with the intervention group significantly out-performing the control group. Implications of the findings are discussed, with a particular focus on what they mean in an environment where schools are increasingly held to account through the use of 'value-add' metrics.